Sequin and chiffon entertainer's jacket : Lorrae Desmond

Entertainer's loose fitting over jacket fashioned from black chiffon patterned with machine embroidered black floral stripes, with a large black taffeta backed, semi-circular silver sequin and rhinestone collar. The design is in the form of a cape-like jacket with long open sleeves, open front, flowing tail and a low collar. The sequinned collar covers the shoulders and upper back. The collar has been strengthened underneath with three flexible strips.

Jacket and matching scarf created from a full length sequin fish tail dress (made by Berman's & Nathan's of London). The dress was originally worn by entertainer Lorrae Desmond, during her March 1967 tour of Vietnam with the ABC Dance Band, where she performed from the back of a flat top semi trailer in an old stone quarry at Nui Dat, Phuoc Tuy Province, South Vietnam for Australian and American troops. The show involved a number of costume changes and the original dress was worn during her opening numbers. This was the first of her five tours to Vietnam, the last being in November 1971, and due to the extreme discomfort she experienced performing in the Vietnam climate in such heavy nightclub garments, Desmond’s appearances in later shows were marked by lighter, sheerer fabrics.

Desmond retained the dress, but in the 1980s was asked to host an Australian television event (possibly the Logies) and turned the dress over to the studio dressmaker to modify it for current tastes. The dressmaker removed the sequined fishtail element of the dress, fashioned a chiffon jacket and matching scarf, added some of the sequins from the dress and discarded the rest, much to Desmond's chargin.

Born Beryl Hunt on 2 October 1932 at Mittagong, NSW, Lorrae Desmond broke into entertainment at 16 as a singing cigarette girl, changed her name and moved to England where she was highly successful in cabaret, pantomime, radio and recording. She returned to Australia in the early 1960s, became Australia's first female Gold Logie winner (for the TV show ‘The Lorrae Desmond Show'), continued to tour nationally and internationally before being asked by the Forces Advisory Committee on Entertainment to provide entertainment in Vietnam. Her show also toured Australian bases in Singapore, Malaya, New Guinea and Manus Island during the 1970s. She was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) ‘for services to the Australian Entertainment Industry and the Welfare of Australian Forces serving overseas'.

• Sequin and chiffon entertainer's scarf : Lorrae Desmond